


The first hundred (on the way to infinity)

by wildewit



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29420085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildewit/pseuds/wildewit
Summary: Yusuf's curious about Nicolò's secret notebook.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 22
Kudos: 116
Collections: Centennial Celebration Collection





	The first hundred (on the way to infinity)

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, they didn’t use the Gregorian calendar then, but I’m hand waving that away because I'm too lazy to do the research.

Yusuf is curious. Nicolò, his quiet enemy turned travel companion turned friend, is not given to hiding things. He speaks little and softly, but clearly and with conviction. 

Nicolò is in many ways an open book. After they became friends, Yusuf asked him about his motivation to participate in the Crusades, and Nicolò had not hidden anything, not one ugly thought he’d had. It was his candour about his role in the invasion and his sincerity in his remorse for that role that began endearing him to Yusuf in the first place. 

And now Yusuf, the fool that he is, has gone and fallen in love with Nicolò. It had started out as a little crush, which turned into a massive crush, which turned into a tumble headlong into love soon after. 

Yusuf feels like a cheat day-after-day for praising Nicolò’s honesty, and then hiding his feelings from the man. But Nicolò used to be a priest. There’s no way he could understand or accept Yusuf’s burgeoning feelings, particularly the carnal ones. 

No, Yusuf must pine away quietly lest he lose this incredible friendship that their strange circumstances have wrought. 

The only thing making it difficult for Yusuf to pine in peace was the change in Nicolò’s demeanour the past couple of weeks. 

Nicolò’s usual calm frankness had been taken over by blushing and stuttering. He’d even taken to scribbling furtively in a small notebook nearly every evening, a notebook that he took great care to hide away every single day. 

That notebook was Yusuf’s nemesis. He needed to know what Nicolò wrote in it every other day, sometimes every day. And why did Nicolò feel the need to hide it anyway? Not like Yusuf was given to poking around in Nicolò’s things. 

To be fair to Nicolò, their things had merged so much that sometimes Yusuf got to the end of the day before realizing why the tunic was tight in his shoulders when the trousers were loose around his bottom. Their clothes, bed linens, utensils, and the handful of other things they had managed to gather during their winter stay in this town were thoroughly mixed up. After nearly a year together, they’d even occasionally fought with each other’s swords. 

Yusuf sometimes gets breathless when he thinks too long about how well their lives are entwined. Watching Nicolò scramble into Yusuf’s slippers to escape the freezing floor or drink from his waterskin make his heart feel like it could float out of his chest. What’s Yusuf’s is also Nicolò’s, and to see Nicolò use Yusuf’s things with a casual ownership made him fall even more in love with his friend. 

If he’s honest with himself, Yusuf knows that Nicolò probably hides the little notebook from him because Yusuf has the bad habit of scribbling poetry or sketching images on every scrap of paper he can find. But it hurts nonetheless. What could be so important that Nicolò wouldn’t want him to see? 

The clue hits Yusuf as he drops the vegetables from Nicolò’s small garden off at the widow Zeba’s doorstep. Zeba’s youngest daughter, Noor, stands by the door and looks a bit disappointed to see him, even though he comes bearing food for the family. 

“Where’s Nicolò?” Noor asks, looking over Yusuf’s shoulder impatiently as if Nicolò might be hiding behind him. 

“He’s still at the market.” 

He turns around without waiting to chat more with the beautiful young lady. The numbness grows in his limbs and face as he realizes why Nicolò blushes and stutters and writes things in a secret notebook. 

While Yusuf has been quietly pining away, Nicolò has gone off and found a love of his own. Yusuf has been impaled by a sword through his heart, and yet the pain of his breaking heart exceeds that manifold. 

He sits on the small rock outcropping overlooking the ocean for a while. He knows that he cannot let his own pain mar Nicolò’s joy. He needs Nicolò to be happy, so he must help Nicolò win over Noor’s love. They might not be able to be together long given their affliction of immortality, but Nicolò can have some time with his beloved. Mind made up, Yusuf makes his way home. 

Nicolò’s already home and making lamb stew. Yusuf loves lamb stew, and he loves Nicolò. This is going to be difficult. 

“Yusuf, you’re home,” Nicolò exclaims. 

The happy look on his face lifts Yusuf’s heart. He would do anything to make his friend happy. 

“Yes, I was just delivering the vegetables you’d picked for the widow Zeba,” Yusuf says. 

And then because he is a masochist, he decides to tease information about Nicolò’s crush on Noor out of him. 

“Noor asked about you. She seemed very disappointed that it wasn’t you making the delivery,” he says with a wink. 

Nicolò shakes his head and laughs, “She’s a sweet child.”

Yusuf’s confused. “What do you mean?” Is Nicolò being his priestly self and not seeing the signals from Noor? Or is this his way of not permitting himself the happiness of love? 

Nicolò looks surprised at Yusuf’s emphatic tone. “I meant nothing, Yusuf, just that she’s a good kid with a crush or something.” 

“Oh, so you don’t like her?”

“I like her fine. As I said, she’s a sweet kid.”

Yusuf doesn’t appreciate the slightly patronizing tone in Nicolò’s voice. 

“I meant … you … you do not love her?” Yusuf ends unsurely. 

“Love her? Of course I don’t love her. She’s a child,” Nicolò says, the eye roll was more implied than real. 

But Yusuf can’t let go. The emphasis on her hasn’t escaped him. 

“So you love someone else then?” he asks as casually as he can. 

Nicolò turns away abruptly. 

“You should go wash up. Dinner’s nearly ready.” 

Yusuf’s gone through a million emotions today, and he just needs to know where Nicolò’s heart lay. 

“Who is it, Nicolò?” he asks clearly, a near challenging tone in his voice. 

“It doesn’t matter, Yusuf. Please just go wash up,” Nicolò says, his shoulders rounded and his demeanour despairing. 

Is Nicolò worried that his love is one-sided? Anybody would be a fool to not love him back. 

“Anybody would be a fool to not love you back, Nicolò,” Yusuf assures him. “If you love someone, you should let her know.” 

“Him … you think I should let him know?” Nicolò whispers even as he trembles with nerves. 

Oh, that’s … that’s something, Yusuf thinks. He loves a man. Another man. This is a terrible day for it, but he must be strong for his friend. 

“Him then. Yes, you should let him know. He would be a fool to give up a chance to have your love, Nicolò.” 

Nicolò’s head jerked up. His beautiful blue-green eyes limned with the red of unshed tears meet his in disbelief. 

“You don’t think I’m … I’m bad, evil f-for loving a man?” 

Yusuf shakes his head. 

“How can love be evil, Nicolò, especially the love of man as truthful, generous, and kind as you? No, you’re not evil, and neither is your love. To love is divine, Nicolò, and I’m glad you’ve found someone who may keep your heart in theirs.”

Tears flow down Nicolò’s cheeks. His relief in Yusuf’s easy acceptance is easy to see. Yusuf’s glad he can offer his friend the comfort of acceptance. 

“You … you really think I should tell him?” 

Yusuf finds it excruciating to look upon Nicolò’s hopeful face as he crushes his own heart, but he wants to support his friend. 

“Yes, you should,” he says. 

Nicolò blinks at him and a tiny smile begins to form on his face. He’s so beautiful, Yusuf thinks. 

“S-so who’s the lucky man?” Yusuf asks, trying to lighten the mood and hopefully end the conversation so he can go tend to his wounded heart in peace. 

“You are,” Nicolò says as he walks closer. 

And then he places his lips against Yusuf’s. 

Stunned, Yusuf fails to respond, and Nicolò withdraws. But before Nicolò can put more than an arm’s length of distance between them and put his heartbreaking expression into the shape of words to apologize, Yusuf grabs his arms and pulls him close. 

“Truly? Truly, Nicolò? It is me?” 

Nicolò nods, and then tucks his head into the space where Yusuf’s neck and shoulder meet. 

“It is you, Yusuf,” he mumbles. “I love you.”

Yusuf combs his fingers through Nicolò’s fine hair and gently pulls him away from hiding in his neck. 

“I love you too, Nicolò.” 

And then he kisses Nicolò. 

The kiss starts out gently like their soft admissions of love and builds to a frenzy that gives form to all their hidden desires. 

They slow as the need for breathing makes itself known, and then Nicolò’s belly growls. They burst out laughing. 

“Alright, go get cleaned up, and we can have dinner,” Nicolò says as he gently nudges Yusuf out towards the well. 

After dinner, they exchange more kisses as they lay facing each other on Nicolò’s bed. Their ardour dislodges the pillow, and Yusuf’s hand lands upon the little notebook. 

Despite the fact that he loves Nicolò and Nicolò loves him back and nothing else matters, Yusuf needs to know what was in the notebook. 

“Nicolò, my love,” he says, and then loses his words as Nicolò blushes. 

“What is it … my love?” Nicolò prompts a speechless Yusuf, even as he blushes harder at using an endearment for Yusuf. 

Yusuf loves it. He wanted to spend the rest of his life finding ways to make this man blush like the most glorious rose in creation. 

“Darling,” Yusuf pauses to let Nicolò’s blush darken, “What’s in the notebook?” 

“Notebook? What … oh this notebook?” Nicolò’s blush darkens to the point where Yusuf begins to worry a bit. 

“You can take a look if you want,” Nicolò says, pushing the notebook into Yusuf’s hands. 

“Oh, if you’re sure.” Yusuf wouldn’t have thought that it would be this easy to satisfy his curiosity about the little notebook. 

He cracks it open. In it there are numbers … serial numbers and dates and words describing … something. 

“What is this? I don’t understand.” 

“What’s what?” Nicolò asks with a teasing tone. 

“What does *8 9, 21 January 1100, hands - when putting clothes out to dry* mean?” Yusuf asks. 

Nicolò drops his gaze and smiles a sweet secret smile to himself. 

He gently holds Yusuf’s free hand that isn’t holding the notebook. 

“It means that on the 21st day of January this year, your hand touched mine when we were putting our clothes out to dry outside. It was our 89th loving touch.” 

Yusuf forgets to breathe. 

This man before him has quietly created an ode to love with numbers and snippets of words. 

Yusuf doesn’t know what to do or how to react, so he looks through the notebook. 

*72, 10 January 1100, hand/shoulder - he put a blanket around my shoulders*

*94, 10 February 1100, hug - after the goat delivered safely into his hands* 

*98, 12 February 1100, fingers - making sure I grasped the cup of tea properly when I was sick*

*99, 13 February 1100, hug - because I made his favourite bread*

“It only goes to 99,” Yusuf says, still awestruck and full to near bursting with emotion. 

“Ah yes, here,” Nicolò searches around and finds a nub of charcoal. 

*100 - 14 February 1100 - lips - when we told each other of our love* 

“There. Perfect now, isn’t it?” Nicolò smiles up at him. 

“Yes, perfect.” 

And then Yusuf kisses Nicolò’s lips, nose, eyes, cheeks, brows, and ears, wherever he can reach till Nicolò begins giggling and continues till Nicolò’s giggles slow down and warm into soft moans. 

“I love you, Nicolò,” he says, near breathless with love, “I love you so much.” 

“I love you too, my heart.” 

“For as long as we both shall live, I promise to love you with every breath in my body,” Yusuf speaks the promise into Nicolò with their lips less than a paper’s thickness apart. 

“I do too, Yusuf. I promise to love you with every beat of my heart.”

“Forever.”

“Forever.”

And they seal their promise with more touches — lips to lips, hands to hands, body to body. So many touches that they soon lose count even as each touch serves to remind them of their simple promise for forever that they renew every 14th day of February.


End file.
